futureusna
5-Year Member
- Joined
- Oct 10, 2011
- Messages
- 87
Do you receive any different training if you decide to go into the Marines?
Not really. It's a different environment. Of course I say this only having been to Leatherneck and not OCS, but I think it has a different endstate. Some of the events are different as well, but the biggest thing is the environment. Because mids have already done plebe summer and plebe year, which does not compare at all to OCS as far as stress levels, the stress at Leatherneck isn't pushed down by the instructors as much.
Leatherneck is meant to be a TBS-like environment (it's not really, but bear with me). It's even held in the TBS buildings, vice on the OCS side of the base. There's only a couple senior enlisted for the entire 300+ MIDN company and they mostly just make sure things are running smoothly (and occasionally provide "encouragement.") Mids are given a (MIDN) chain of command and mostly told "be here with this at this time" and expected to make it happen. You're expected to take initiative and get a lot of things done outside of the schedule, which is very busy as it is. You could miss meals or sleep time (a lot of sleep time...) to get something done that needs to get done, like rifle cleaning, studying, or uniform prep, because those things don't have time slots built into the day. For the most part, as long as you get stuff done, you're treated like an adult and don't have to do the false motivation stuff, drill, etc.
A lot of people complain about Leatherneck, but I found that aspect of it refreshing. Sometimes you have to do stupid stuff, but that there were actually expectations and standards for us was a nice change of pace from, say, PROTRAMID or youngster cruise.
OCS is more of a screening environment kind of (but not quite) like boot camp. Candidates are still expected to take initiative and get a lot of things done outside of working hours, but they're escorted around a lot more than mids and a lot more...attention from the SIs. It's also sort of a crash course in introduction to the Marine Corps, and so Candidates do drill, etc. They also PT, and PT hard, pretty much every day.
I could count on one hand the number of scheduled PT sessions we had. They were a kick in the nuts, but the expectation was that not only were we working hard during physical events like the O/E Course, but were also maintaining fitness on our own time using the makeshift gyms around the TBS buildings. To clarify, Leatherneck was very physical but in a different way than a scheduled PT session every morning while getting yelled at by SIs.
We saw (from afar) some OCS guys going through training when we went over to that side of the base for the LRC. It's a completely different environment.